Report Warns Of Excess Recycling Consultants Say Lake Must Save Some Trash For New Incinerator

August 26, 1989|By Peter Mitchell of The Sentinel Staff

TAVARES — Lake County, it seems, just doesn't have enough garbage to go around. Just take a look at the top of the trash heap.

More than anything else, the county's residential garbage is full of clippings, trimmings and palm fronds, a recent study shows. But as the county gets ready to begin a massive recycling program, consultants are recommending against recycling all that yard waste right away.

That, they say, would make the county's recycling effort too successful - so much so that the county's garbage incinerator would have too little garbage to work with.

''If the incinerator wasn't a factor, you could probably more aggressively pursue your yard trash composting and your commercial recycling,'' said David Deans of Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan Inc., the county's solid waste consultants. As it is, Deans said, the county should ease into recycling more slowly.

That was the conclusion of the consultant's draft report distributed this week to the county's Solid Waste Recycling Committee - and it was an idea that did not sit well Friday with some committee members.

''This is our not-recycle plan,'' said committee member Hal Turville of Clermont, president of the Lake County Conservation Council. ''Now, they're going to have us write a recycling plan that doesn't do anything but accommodate the burn plant.''

In short, the draft report recommends a plan that would begin next year with a pilot curb side program in some areas and drop-off centers in others, but delay any commercial recycling until 1993 and yard waste composting until 1998.

Officials wouldn't say Friday how close the county would come to the state's requirement that every county recycle 30 percent of its waste. Because one of the largest potential programs - yard composting - will be delayed, they conceded the county might fall short.

According to the report, 11 tons of yard waste could be composted in Lake County and another 11 tons of commercial waste could be recycled in 1991. But by doing that the county would not keep its obligation to provide 130,000 tons of garbage to the incinerator.

So in 1991, when the residential recycling projects begin, the consultants have recommended working with about a third of the amount of waste the county could be recycling.

Whether the committee will adopt the report is unclear.

In the next two weeks, members of the committee will be studying the report and preparing a plan of their own to present to the county commission.

They agreed Friday to pass a report to commissioners in time for the commission's Sept. 12 meeting.